From the inauguration of George Washington to the birth of the cotton trade in the American South, from the British Empire's war in India to the street battles of the French revolution, Andress shows how the struggles of this explosive year would dominate the Old and New Worlds for the next 200 years.

The world in 1789 stood on the edge of a unique transformation. At the end of an unprecedented century of progress, the fates of three nations--France, the nascent United States, and their common enemy, Britain--lay interlocked. A year of revolution was crowned in two documents drafted at almost the same time: the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the American Bill of Rights. These texts gave the world a new political language and promised to foreshadow new revolutions, even in Britain. But as the French Revolution spiraled into chaos and slavery experienced a rebirth in America, it seemed that the budding code of individual rights would forever be matched by equally powerful systems of repression and control. David Andress reveals how these events and the men who led them stood at the threshold of the modern world. --From publisher description.